Blase's Blog

PACIFICA COMMENTARY FOR OCTOBER 26, 2005
PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE MURDER

And now we have over 2,000 dead, tens of thousands of seriously wounded and from the actual beginning of this war in 1991, over a million Iraqi deaths, most of them civilians together with countless people traumatized for life. Mark Goldman has written a piece called Public vs. Private Murder, I would like to share some of his thoughts with you.

If one day George W. Bush had opened up a drawer to his desk and pulled out a six shooter and shot Colin Powell in the heart... presumably that would have resulted in a national scandal... Bush would have been impeached and eventually tried for murder.

But as it turns out, Bush did not pull out a gun and shoot Colin Powell dead, or anyone else. Instead he pulled out a pen and signed his name to a number of executive orders which resulted in the murder or dismemberment of many tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. In addition, his orders destroyed the infrastructure of an entire country, made hundreds of thousands of people homeless and created endless pain and sorrow. And he did all this without any legitimate authority. He simply created this disaster by using lies, deceit, bribery, trickery, secrecy, propaganda and every kind of unconscionable human behavior that he and his cronies could devise.

Every step along the way, Bush and his cabal trampled on the rule of law, corrupting the morals of an entire nation while reeking havoc beyond anyone's imagination. All of this was set in motion by the illegal and unauthorized whims of a few ideologues. But now, his crimes have become our crimes.

These are the ultimate crimes against peace and against humanity. All of his lies were not enough to gain the required authorization from the United Nations. He should have known that to break the Charter of the United Nations is to break the Constitution of the United States because treaties become part of the Constitution. But Bush went ahead anyway and no one stopped him.

How can this happen? It can happen when people are willing to compromise their integrity, are willing to lie to themselves and others for convenience, are willing to rationalize their behavior in order to conform or to gain money, power or prestige, assuage fear, or refuse to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. It can also happen when people are betrayed by those they trust.

Mass murder has been committed here and so far we are afraid to face up to it and take responsibility for it. All it takes is for citizens to ignore their responsibilities just a little bit, that's all it takes for a nation to betray itself.

We must now stir up the courage to indict, convict and punish the murderers.
Thanks Mark Goldman.
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http://www.gpln.com/citizen.htm
Universal Declaration of Human Rights